My Experience

When I got home I found a slat had been broken in the airing cupboard and there was brick dust all over the floor where the installer had drilled holes in the wall.

Still excited though.

Then…

The heating does not work.

I called Hive at 6pm and after checking everything I was told something was wrong and they could get an engineer out the following day – hopefully. I explained I have two small children who are freezing and its snowing outside.

Eventually after being passed through the support team – someone agreed it was an emergency and booked an engineer to come out that evening.

The engineer turned up at 10pm. Then a second one turned up 10 minutes later.

It was a really cold evening – so I was very grateful they had turned up and immediately put the kettle on. I mentioned that I think it may be the pump as even though the boiler fires up nothing is being pushed though. Engineer said very unlikely – probably the installer wired it wrong.

They removed the doors from the cupboards in the spare room that had the airing cupboard and pulled away a plywood wall. Both were left without being put back.

Heating was restored by 11pm. The pump needed to be replaced. But the thermostat keeps dropping off unless it was within 2m of the Hub or receiver.

The engineers suggested I call Hive the following day to rectify the problem.

17th Jan

Called Hive and explained the issues. I was told the problem was that “your house is made of bricks and that causes issues” sic.

I asked what sort of a walls other people had as I assumed brick walls were common. Due to houses being built of them.

Hive support person did not find this funny.

Then I was told it was because I had a door bell. Removed door bell. Still no communication.

Then said they would send out a Smart Plug that boosts the signal.

I screwed the doors back and repaired the wall as best I could.

19th Jan

Kids back from nursery so I started to run a bath and found we had no cold water from the taps in the bath. The toilet had stopped filling as well. Tap in the downstairs toilet had also stopped working.
Called Hive and explained. An engineer was booked to come out on the 22nd in the morning. 3 days later.

20th Jan

A plumber friend came over and said it was an air lock caused by the new pump and the water not being flushed properly after it was installed. After draining the system the taps and toilet now work. Hooray!
I called and cancelled the engineer visit.

The thermostat still loses connection when its more than 2m away from the base unit.

21st Jan

Smartplug received. Called Hive. Still no connection.
Spoke to Mark (who was very helpful) on the help desk who agreed it may be the thermostat.
He said he would send a new one out.

24th Jan

New thermostat delivered .
Connected.

Same problem.
Called Hive.

Was told it had been escalated to 2nd line and I would be contacted by phone within 24 hours.
They didn’t.

26th Jan

Emailed the Hive support desk.

Later I was called by Hive help desk. Plugged and unplugged the smart plug a dozen times. They said I now need 2 smart plugs. I asked to have an engineer to site – they said I have to have the second plug first.

I was then told that I should just leave the Thermostat in the airing cupboard. Help desk person did not seem to think this was a problem.

I explained why it was, in some graphic detail.

27th Jan

Fixed the broken slat in the airing cupboard.

29th Jan

Decided to try some tests my self. I’m pretty sure the problem is with the Receiver and the Thermostat. I can get the Smart Plug to connect but even if I put the Thermostat on top of it – it does not connect. I think the Thermostat and the Receiver use a different way to communicate rather than Zigbee. Or that the Receiver is broken.

I received my mobile phone bill this morning. Turns out I have spent £17.16 on calls to Hive. Not happy.

Still waiting for the second plug to be delivered.

Decided to call support again as the Hub, Receiver and Smart Plug all work. But the Thermostat is not – even though its on top of the Smartplug.
Spoke to C******** – who asked me exactly the same questions all over again. Frankly not very good.
Pleaded (really nicely) with her to put me through to Mark. Or second line. Or her manager.

Spoke to Pauline – Line manager – lovely – helpful – great – but can’t fix it.
She is going to talk to Ashely – who is second line a technical person!!
And has promised to call me back. Its 15.40. Lets see.

She called!

OK – more tests – more resets. Grrrrrr.
But – she thinks – as I do – the receiver is not working correctly.
Engineer booked for Monday – fingers crossed.
On another note – since Hive went in the radiators are much, much hotter – and the radiators pop and fizzle – is this normal?

2 Feb
Random call from British Gas who said they were sending me £25 for the damage to the airing cupboard and wall. Thanks.

Andy the engineer turns up at 11.30 – which is good.

Told him to get the heating schedule backed up as my wife is getting really pissed at having to redo every time one of the help desk resets it.

I explained the situation – Andy looks worried and says he hoped it was a burst water pipe – and had I spoken to “The Geek Squad” Err – if that’s the help desk then yes, lots.

Andy looks more worried.

Its a shame he had no idea about the problem before being sent here. He admitted he does not know. Says he wants to move the Receiver as the boiler is too close.

Great.

I think I should start live blogging this.

12.35 House is now FREEZING.
Engineer has done EXACTLY what I have done already – the help desk are just getting him to do the same things again. WHY WHY.
I own an IT company – I wrote a help desk application in Microsoft Access. I would gladly give it to British Gas – it would save them a fortune on sending out people who don’t have a clue what they are supposed to be doing or when they call up they can check to see what’s been done before.

1pm – They have got it working.

I now have 2 Smart Plugs – situated 4m apart with the Thermostat in the middle.
The Smart Plugs look rubbish and they are on the hall and landing in full site. The cleaner has already knocked one out. I’m told there is no other way around this.

BTW – They did not save the settings.

All in all after nearly 3 weeks of mucking about I am less than impressed.

No one seems to know what they are doing, none of the on site engineers have a clue how this system works and what I was sold – a seamless, elegant solution is turning into an ugly, clunky one.

I will send this link to Hive and see if they would like to comment.

77 thoughts on “My Experience”

installation was fine but we hate Hive and so do BG engineers, when it goes wrong they will get you to phone in and go up and down stairs to reset it, I am disabled so not happy with that. Hive are trying to wriggle out of replacing it with a modern, standard control system as warranty just expired but complained several times during the 12 months and were fobbed off, we have statutory rights as credit customers too, do not put up with it it is a business project to make money for BG as you have to be the customers!

31st Jan 2016
In Oct after daughter accidentally turned off power in 2nd home this cut off router & no visibility of Hive Heatibg system via IPad so I get a friend/builder to drive 20 miles to access the house & restart router (not easy as not everyone is IT smart)

Regretfully (& puzzlingly) the system is still not working – and the FAQ’s say nothing to offer up clues

I resolve 2-3 weeks later when I visit and carefully restart everything – after a few attempts it works …so I fiddle no more, but I’m perplexed

Then this weekend it’s a country recovering after storm winds (& snow) & I’ve text the builder/friend again to call down in bad snowy weather – but 12 hours later I check and still nothing is connecting to the Hive App.

So this morning I call Hive – great help from William – but the advice is a “belt & braces” turning off/on, unplugging, swapping wires, placing in new router ports (how I’d explain this to a wee farmer/builder is beyond me!) …but as we conclude the call I ask …is there any chance the reboot time of the typical broadband router is a little slower than the Hive Hub? Byjaysus, we’ve a eureka moment as HiveHelper agrees that reboots often don’t align and Hub would fail if broadband doesn’t connect first pre the vital component HiveHeating hub.

After another email Hive admit that latest generation hub will try to connect to broadband a (vital) FEW times …. surely Hive are committed to steering their customers in typical stormy / winter type weather around these risks of power outages?

Crazy that we’re sold a system promise that controls heating remotely – but power outages are not a factor Hive Heating seem to care about steering customers around. You’d think its easy to have a Hive hub delay its reboot for 2-3 minutes …. or where their design is flawed, that they would seek to update anyone with this issue with latest generation hub that mysteriously has design features that guide customers around the problem …

Would it be a case that I “bought” the Hive System outright and thru (Hive Centrica) are determined to tough it out …… ?

Very disappointed and have tweeted to this effect ….. share / retweet & acknowledged my tweet if you feel it’s warranted – I think we all expected we have a Hive system for ALL seasons, but especially for WINTER season!

Notwithstanding your buildings being dismembered, I have a similar issue plus my own assertions as to HIVE’s logical flaw(s).

Regularly my thermostat “dies” resulting in no heating controls and a freezing house.

Pressing the thermo button reveals a black screen with day and time plus these immortal words “NO SIGNAL” between thermo and boiler controller (THERE IS A SIGNAL HONEST!).The only way to resolve this is to power recycle the Thermo by disconnecting a battery. Instantaneously the “missing” signal is found and all is well for a day or so…

This is a classic “Cause and effect” scenario – HIVE clearly have a logic problem with TRANSIENT loss of signal. The running routine is incapable of reconnecting to the (restored) signal, whereas the Reboot/Rollback code IS capable of reconnection.

I am fed up with their TAC1 help desk, they are not technically capable of resolution (Signal booster is useless and would only address the CAUSE if it worked). They need to escalate this flaw to Engineering/Design and get the EFFECT resolved.

My hive keeps going offline. Also have been given a smart plug (just one). I don’t know why it keeps going offline line? I have broadband signal. I have a brick house. Shall I ask for a 2nd smart plug or keep persevering with reset after reset until it decides to come online?

I read your excellent comments with a mixture of amusement and terror!
We are having similar problems – “You live in a stone house”, “move the thermostat nearer to the hub and receiver” (they’re only 2m apart with booster between!), “could be the washing machine, the door bell, other wireless devices, etc, etc” Do all their other customers live in one room flats? Should we put our “smart” lights in the airing cupboard? Our problems have been going on for 3 months and still not resolved.

Hello,
Seems like it is not only one situation when “so called engineers” and professionals have no clue about how things work (or should have). I am talking about many other companies selling something that has not been tested on various grounds and situations.
Anyway, I wonder if you had any further communication from them regarding compensate your wasted time and money? It is been a few months ago and any update would be appreciated.

I’m sitting writing this from the kitchen. With a fan heater.
4 weeks ago the boiler did not work. After a day it mysteriously came on again.Then went off.Again. Phoned Hive new batteries,reset the hub, linked the stat to the hub.Moved the hub off the floor. New batteries were the wrong brand apparently. Heating working. For a day.Phoned Hive and did all the same things I did previously.Not working so ‘we’ll book an engineer’. Must be the boiler then. Engineer arrives two days later. Nothing wrong with the boiler sir, I think you need Hive 2 ( Hive 1 is about three years old and things have moved on. £150 to install but its much better Sir, you can control your hot water too. Worked for two weeks. Engineer arrived next day. Hope its the boiler sir he said I dont know anything about Hive. Boiler mysteriously kicked in without any repair. Looks like its sorted Sir.
Next day no heating again. Engineer booked but this time a Hive specialist. Planned for this morning. Now late afternoon. Still sitting in the kitchen with a fan heater. Three days off work and counting……..

I’m having problems with my hive hub not completing an upgrade for some reason (despite good Internet connection). Until hive resolve the issue I can’t control it via the app (only by the thermostat).

But for anyone in a worse state without heating, note that you can press the central heating override button on the receiver (next to the boiler). This will turn heating on constantly regardless of any connection issues with the hub, thermostat, receiver or Internet. Press the override button again to turn it off. It’s obviously not ideal in constant mode but a good temporary work around if you’re freezing!

My Daughter had the hive heating controls fitted by a ‘normal’ plumber but it seems he didnt leave her the HUB so she can use the phone App to control her water/heating on contacting Hive this morning I was told that people cannot buy second hand Hubs that Hive dictate that once you purchase there system that’s it if you no longer want it you have to destroy it rather than try and recouperate your costs. Can anyone please explain from Hive why you cannot transfer your so called accounts .. Personally I have never known a company behave in this way. .. I will never buy there products or recomend anyone to buy .

I had the first generation installed with a new boiler and had no problems with it. Then recently, after all the push coming from BG, I bought the new fancy thermostat.

From the very start it would not connect to the receiver. After phoning tech support and multiple failed attempts putting the receiver into pairing mode and rebooting the thermostat it finally connected. Then I added 5 lights and 2 motion sensors. Went away one weekend and when I came back the thermostat had gone offline as had the two motion sensors! So at 1am I tried to get things working again. The new thermostat would not reconnect but I got the old thermostat connected even though it did not show up on hivehome or on my phone app. But at least I could run the heating.

Next morning I phoned tech support again and after rebooting the whole system including removing the old thermostat from their system (which can only be done from Hive end) they managed to get the thermostat running again as well as the motion sensors. They said it was because I had an old receiver. So they booked an engineer to install a new receiver. He opened the boxed receivers he had and it turned out they were old-model receivers in new boxes! He had to phone a friend to bring round a new model receiver. System running again.

The following weekend, while I was away, the thermostat went offline again! Another Monday (5th Dec 2016) morning phone call, more resetting got the new thermo working again & the solution was a new hub, so I was told. I would get it in 4-6 working days.

Once again the thermo and receiver lost connection again (now 12th Dec 2016). They said I needed to wait until the new hub arrives. I said it hadn’t and they said it had not been ordered until the 8th which means it should arrive today! It will fix everything. After giving them the customary earful I got them to reconnect my old thermostat which connected almost instantaneously but it has taken out one of my motion sensors (why?)! I pointed out that I believe the thermo was the problem so send a new one of those. But no, the script will not allow it until I receive the hub.

I believe the Hive system is technically flawed. The engineers they send out have no experience of radio technology and have no kit to measure signal strength etc. And with the money they must be wasting with tech support I can see the Hive Home section of BG shutting down. BTW, I am a freelance SW engineer and ex-RF engineer and know someone who worked on the AlertMe system that Hive uses. While I was on tech support, I was listening to conversations in the background and could hear similar problems to mine being diagnosed (if that is what you can call it).

Interestingly, I had 3 phone calls from recruitment agencies (2 from the same agent, 1 from another) desperate to recruit a softie with ZigBee knowledge for a company in Cambridge. AlertMe Ltd, which was bought by BG and whose technology is used in Hive, is based in Cambridge! Maybe I should offer my services!

This system is fundamentally flawed, their engineers have no clue, we are now without heating, luckily not so cold at the moment.
We have cancelled all contracts with BG and will use private engineer to remove this junk and revert back to original timer system.
Please please people do not risk your existing system or waste your money on this utter junk.
Rip off Britain at its finest.
Merry xmas

Hi really good to hear other people having very similar problems with Hive, I have had Hive 1&2 thermostats for quite awhile and no particular problems until I installed six lightbulbs, since then the thermostat keeps dropping in and out and we constantly wake up to no hot water and a cold house which is unfortunate when you have young children .

I am frustrated that I spent over £400 on the hive and now is not working at all well, I’ve been through exactly the same scenario as described above I have most recently had a new hub sent out which is made exactly no difference whatsoever.

It’s fairly clear that the technology just is not up to working with a large number of devices

Had a similar problem. Had Hive installed to control heating and water…no problems for years. Decided to add 5 lights ….no end of problems with heating and water control. Eventually they sent me a booster. Worked fine for a while and did not have any issues till I got a Netgear powering wifi plug. I installed it in the same room as the Hive booster. Almost immediately Hive started misbehaving again…kept dropping connection to hub. This went on for a few days and then I finally called Hive…after checking everything out they diagnosed a hub issue and sent a new hub. Meantime suspecting booster was too close to wifi plug I had just connected, I turned off the wifi plug….been working fine since. Must say that I have always found Hive support very helpful. Don’t just palm you off. I would suggest that you get a booster and put it half way between your thermostat and hub and move boosters and hub as far away from any wifi equipment as you can.

I bought a HIVE system after my dated timer stopped working and my work colleagues were telling me about it. I looked on the website and saw that there was a 0% payment plan and opted for this. Whilst filling out the online request the booking was made but it told me there was a problem with the payment and requested I phoned HIVE. Next day I phoned HIVE to be told that everything was ok and that installation ws booked in for the following week. The next day I start receiving texts and emails telling me I have not made payment and I need to ring HIVE. I ring HIVE who tell me everything is ok and the installation is booked. Then email arrives saying that payment has not been made and I have 48 hrs to rectify this before the booking is cancelled. I phone HIVE, there is a problem their end, I give payment details again and am told that everything is fine and installation will go ahead. Installation does go ahead, but I receive phone calls, texts, and emails telling me that payment has not been made, call HIVE as a matter of Urgency. I call HIVE who look into it and say all should be fine now.

One month later I decide to pay the amount in full as I am not comfortable with HIVE managing the payments. I call HIVE, they tell me ho payments have been made and I am now £45 in arrears. It was the same operator that has called to say that everything is now fine one month earlier. The excuse given was that the invoices were raised, but the payment has not been taken, and that the problem is at their end as the monthly payment was an exercise to see how it worked and it has not worked properly.

Full price has been charged despite spending hours on the phone to them and the fault being entirely at their payment collections. I wish I had just bought a new timer instead.

I have Hive, it was installed some 2 years ago and worked perfectly ok UNTIL I bought the light bulbs!! They are not fit for purpose, at first I couldn’t connect one of them so Hive sent me a new, and the latest, hub. This seemed to solve the problem, for a while, then the thermostat started to disconnect and had to be rebooted by removing and replacing a battery. This happened every few days, Hive said it was due to firmware updates required for the bulbs so they sent the updates. Worked ok for a few days then thermostat disconnected yet again, this time in middle of January whilst away so house went cold, had to travel back to pick up a signal booster which Hive sent, installed it and Thermostat stayed connected for 6 days! It’s now off again so will have to travel home once again to reboot the Thermostat. The people you speak to at Hive try to be helpful but at the end of the day they are trying to justify a system that is not fit for purpose.

They are controlled from your hub via your phone or pad, similar to your heating, i.e. you schedule them to come on and off when you want them to, security in the home! They are also only 9 watts and you can set them for 10% up to 100% so saving energy. They do have a problem that Hive are allegedly sorting out with new Firmware.

New boiler and Hive thermostat installed middle of December by BG. Thermostat broke down on 24th January and despite ‘phone help from BG advising me to remove batteries, etc. would not work. It had to be replaced next day. Woke this morning, no heating. Thermostat not connecting. However removing batteries did kick start it this time. Obviously this set up is not fit for purpose.

I have had no end of hive problems since it was installed. I’ve had engineers out regularly, they’ve tried to make repairs to the system, but all to no avail. The problems appear to always occur when the outside temperature gets really cold, below 3 or 4 degrees: JUST WHEN WE MOST NEED IT.

It’s at this time that m we lose any control over our heating or hot water system. The schedule stops working, and it seems to go on to some other schedule which we cannot change. That schedule does not include having heating or hot water on from late adternoon until about midnight. Then they seem to come on until about 9am. This makes ‘no sense’, nor does it follow ‘rhyme nor reason’.

All Brit Gas do is keep sending around engineers who inspect the system, or replace the hive. –

As I write this, it’s 9pm and the outside temperature is -1. ( Though on my hive it says +4degrees!!!). The temperature inside the house according to the thermostat is about 14degrees, mostly because of the many electric heaters we have running (at a serious extra cost). I’ve boosted the heating, which should be on anyway according to the schedule, at 20degrees, but my radiators are stone cold. However, this afternoon, when the outside temperature was above 4 degrees, the radiators worked fine, controlled by my hive control on my phone.

This is the second year with Hive, last year we had a very mild winter and therefore didn’t notice any problems. But this is the second cold spell of the winter, the first in Nov, and this past week. On both occasions the same issue.

I plan to tell them now to remove it. And replace it with an old fashioned thermostat. Basically it’s a majorly flawed product as far as I am concerned.

To add to the previous comments. All the lights on the hive receiver are telling me it’s on when it’s not, thermostat says it’s on, the phone says it’s on, the only thing that’s not actually on is the heating.

We recently,two weeks ago to be exact had a new boiler with the hive control. At first it seemed ok when we managed to find out how it worked ,info rubbish. Now we have the problem that it appears so many others have,it keeps coming up as no signal,but receiving which means you can’t alter the temp. ect. Rang hive and they are sending me a booster,which by the sound of others experiences isn’t much use. They have put the receiver up in my tank cupboard behind the tank,the receiver is down stairs in my husband study attached to his but hub and the thermostat is n the hall. All are certainly more than 2 m apart,surely this isn’t right. Glad to hear we’re not on our own with these problems,I’m ready to scream and throw the bl…y thing in the bin.

We had Hive installed 2 years ago. We are woken in the night boiler with radiators full on, despite schedule that they should be off! Hive does not work, it is a callous way of making money.we wish we had never had it installed.

Have exactly the same issue – waking at 3am soaking in sweat as the radiators are fully on ! Hive thermostat says it should be off – no lights on the receiver to indicate that the heating should be on but boiler lit and radiators cooking.

British Gas engineer here right now at 4:20pm putting back my system as it was before, he’s been here since midday. He installed Hive then, oh, it doesn’t work with my central heating. He was going to leave it so I could have both hot water and heating on or nothing, I said No, please put it back, I don’t want to waste money heating the very little hot water I use! What a waste of time. Now to get a refund!

My problem with hive. Bought installation self install from agents of British Gas. Returned to Ireland to fit same. Would not let me register my hub. Hence money down the drain. Even though hive products are sold all over the British Isles. Irish Gas has monopoly and will not supply unless installed by their engineers. What about the freedom of goods and services within the E.U. Joke. No wonder Britain is leaving. Best of luck.

Nothing but issues since installation – inconsistent messages from hive support from blaming my system to interference to more recently omitting major issue with the system that they are hoping to patch. I’ve had enough and would not recommend this product at the moment way to buggy I’ve spent hours on the phone. Enough is enough they need to tell people about this issue , is channeling my frustration now and have started contacting various organisations about this issue. This product does not work this is just the start.

I posted a message on 20th January re problems with my Hive installation after installing the bulbs. A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and I continued to have problems until a guy named Scott at Hive answered my phone. He is a dedicated sort of person who won’t give up, he monitored my system and when it still went wrong he came up with a solution that basically entailed putting all the bulbs back to factory settings and reinstalling them and up to now the system has behaved itself. Im leaving it as it is for the next 6 weeks before putting the remaining bulbs back on line as Hive are supposed to be working on a new firmware update for the bulbs, this was due out mid February but has yet to appear. If it wasn’t for Scott I would have probably sent all the bulbs back as, under the Sales of Goods Act, as they do not do what they are supposed to do they are not of Merchantable Quality and I am entitled to a refund. I t does annoy me also that Hive are still pushing out new products yet they have not resolved the problem of the bulbs.

OH NO! – Hive What have you done? The latest web interface is appalling, truly awful. What a huge step backwards. I cannot believe you have turned an intuitive interface into a nightmare. Congratulations, I am not the only dissatisfied user!

Hmm, wish I hadn’t read this forum now. Just going through the motions of getting Hive installed, already off to a bad start – engineer was due this pm, but called me to say he’d taken thermostat out of box to check it before setting off and it’s damaged, install now put back a couple of days.

I’m going to check my “cooling off period” [no pun intended !!] and might consider scrapping this and going for a different vendor. (It was a close call anyway, only the staggered payments persuaded me to go down the BG route.)

Absolutely, completely, utterly fed up to the back teeth with Hive. Devices constantly offline, can’t rely on sensors telling me if my doors have been opened or can’t voice control lights which keep falling offline. The whole system is unreliable to the point of being unusable.

Invested in a Hue system two weeks ago and haven’t had a single issue. What’s more, the Hue lights come on almost instantly when I ask Alexa to control them, versus the 10-20 seconds I have to wait for Hive to respond.

Will be asking for a full refund for the sensors and bulbs I have purchased, but guess I am stuck with the heating control 🙁

Thank You All for your comments\reviews. I value reliability over penny pinching, and these comments have been critical to my decision below.

Having been offered the Hive package for £9 per month subscription over 12 months by BG, I was considering adding the Hive heating system. But reading the comments here, I’ve decided I won’t be giving over control of my heating to anyone other than my standard reliable thermostat! Either the technology or it’s implementation doesn’t seem ready for public consumption yet.

I have recently upgraded my personal WiFi Router to something that completely covers all corners of my house – foregoing BT’s free offer of their latest Home Hub – and added a Phillips Hue lighting system that works flawlessly with my Apple TV, iPhone and Siri voice control. I don’t want to add anything that might mess with my setup, and it seems BG obviously don’t feel the need to get a grip on the issues I’m reading about before going fully commercial with this project.

Although I consider myself to be fairly knowledgeable with wifi and computer systems, I refuse to become a Guinea Pig for their Beta program.

I had hive heating installed February, all fine. Last month for 1 day I had a problem with no signal, 2 very long hive calls, rebooted, issued booster , though I’m in a small terrace and receiver, hub and thermostat not far apart. Problem solved.

This weekend repeatedly says no signal, red Light on and off on receiver. 2 long hive calls, all very polite, update, reboot blah blah.
Thank god it’s spring, and mild. If not resolved which doubt it will be I want a traditional thermostat installed. Or is nest any better?

Update, it went back to no signal, surprise and also incorrectly reads the room temperature as being warmer than it is.
Managed to get put through to level 2 team at hive and they’re sending me a new thermostat, but they have said they don’t think it’ll sort problem. How disappointing, seems to be too many users with this fault.

If I had read all these comments before I bought a HIVE system I would have had second thoughts! Just bought a self install system and managed to get it all working straight away!!!! Only query is that Thermostat does not seem to register correct temperature, it seems to read high, has anyone else had this problem?

I’m now very disappointed in my Hive system. I think its not fit for purpose. It goes spontaneously offline and cannot manage to reset itself. I believe this is related to instability of the BT broadband signal that I use as a provider. Perhaps the instability of the BT broadband is related to outages caused by various global cyberattacks. But basically the Hive system is immature technology that has caused me to waste hours of my time trying to get it to reconnect. I think I’ve tried everything listed on this forum. The experience of this forum shows that this technology is currently poor and the support system is awful. The software needs upgrading so it can reconnect better. I am angry. Prof Chris Oliver, Anstruther, Fife

I had hive installed back in Jan – was brilliant. It has now started to drop off line. I have not moved anything! You may need a booster, booster came. Still drops the signal. It may be the hub, new hub came and it drops the signal. We will send you our latest booster – its the same one they sent 3 days prior. It could be the receiver – that was replaced….. Bingo! 6hrs later it is off line. Reboot and its back on. Woke up this morning and it’s off line. I have HIVE on speed dial! My advice – dont bother!

I ordered and paid up front for hive to be installed 7 weeks ago, waited for the day given to be installed 9/6/17 and to my surprise they had no record of me whatsoever on day of installation.
After complaining and on the phone for 3 hours I got no satisfaction at all, only to be told I would have to wait yet another week.
What the hell is going on Hive team/British Gas….even told that it would take three days to handle my complaint and come back to me.
What a shambles for a so called reputable company, you wonder why you’re losing customers.
So quick to take my £200 but try getting it back!
If customers are getting hive free now, then why am I paying this money, when I’ve also joined for dual fuel?
This deserves to go to the ombudsman!

I had 8 months of hassle basically because i had one faulty lightbulb that customer services were convinced was an environmental factor.

Front line said it was interference and did their usual steps of not listening to what customer was telling them. First they tried a signal booster. Next they gave me a free upgrade from a hub 1 to a hub 2.

I cant tell you how many times i had to restart my entire system but i now know how to troubleshoot absolutely everything lol.

Well did customer services sort my problems…. NOPE…

The trouble was that hive used to use bulbs as signal boosters. This meant that plugs and worse thomostat could link through a bulb (updates to the bulbs have stoped thermostats doing this now).

So all my hassles in the end were caused by one faulty bulb. Not once in 8 months did hive suggest this could be the problem faulty equipment. They never asked me once to try it in a different position always making the wrong assumption it was interfearence of some description.

So fed up after 8 months and convinced i was right and customer services were useless, i moved my bulb to completely different location.

That bulb was swapped with another hive bulb that was working ok. It prooved it, the original faulty bulb was still not functioning correctly in new location and the swapped bulb worked fine in the location which was previously an issue.

So back on phone to customer services and i explained everything and they still didnt believe me and wanted to monitor for another week from their side.

So knowing now that customer service are totally incompetent, friendly sure but incompetent, i found my purchase receipt and replaced bulb at maplins.

No issues since having new bulb and vindicates my total lack of faith now in customer support.

In summary i got a new hub and booster plug that probably were not needed all because hive wouldnt believe me and replace one faulty bulb. So cost them more and totally frustrated a customer who will now never recommend hive to any friends or family, well done hive customer support…. epic fail.

I`ve had Hive for over a year now and often have to put the thermostat into the fridge to enable the heating to come on and then into a warm oven to turn it off , was going to contact the Hive team but after reading this blog and its comment i would rather get rid of the Hive !
So does anyone know how to reverse this system so i can manually turn my heating ON and then turn my heating OFF …. would love that feeling ….. On/Off switch .

Do not buy a Hive! Same issues, wake up in the middle of the night at 27.8+ yet everything is off! I’m at work and checked the temperature at home and its 25. I’ve not touched the heating since the engineer left 3 days ago. BG Engineers out 5 times in the last 3 weeks, I’ve been told there’s nothing wrong with it, then the same valve on my boiler has been replaced twice, and a motor. Now my boiler is “obsolete” and they do not have parts available! My house is 10 years old! Now I am being told to cut the power to my boiler when I’m not using it!! BG are being very unhelpful! I’ve asked for them to take the Hive out, which they wont do as its not faulty! Dreading my gas bill! Wish I read this before I had it installed.

If your house is only 10 years old, I would find it hard to believe parts are not available. BG are good at telling people parts are obsolete. I am a heating engineer and come across this all the time. What boiler do you have ?

Just read your forum and I thought I would add my experience. I moved into a house with a Hive to control heating. Two weeks ago a symbol appeared saying change batteries. So I changed batteries and it’s not worked since. I emailed hive help and I followed their instructions exactly. It didn’t work so I emailed again then more instructions which I follow exactly and you have guessed it no connection and the hive does not work. I have now make the decision I am going to replace the hive with a more normal system. I think there must be a serious flaw in the design.

I have had exactly the same experience, moved to a house with hive control for heating, worked fine until I had to replace batteries. Now control only works if I remove and then replace (the same ) batteries. I get a NO RF signal message. Nothing seems to help.

I hate Hive. I have had it since July 2017. It is a nightmare. I have the heating, hot water, and 3 lights. It has lost connection 3 times and like others here, tech support expect me to run around changing light bulbs, taking batteries out, resetting this and resetting that. This is the 3rd time. I’m done. How far is the hub from electronic goods. It’s right next to the modem because it has to be plugged into the bloody thing. British Gas is going to get a call to take the bloody thing away. Going to go back to timed lamps and timed heating. So much easier. If you don’t have it yet, don’t get it. It’s just not worth it.

Worse than the connectivity problems are the fact that at least once a month the hive servers go down and you lose control of all your devices except for manual on or off on the boiler. One or two outages a year I wouldn’t complain about but they are far more regular so you can’t rely on the system to do what you programmed it to do.

Had Hive fitted last week, now the house is boiling hot or freezing cold, before I had Honeywell controls and the house maintained an even temperature, I want the Honeywell controls back but British Gas have disposed of them, they weren’t theirs to get rid of I bought and paid for them myself and paid someone to fit them, wish I had read the reviews now, would never have had Hive, now I’m concerned I’m going to have expensive bills, to revert back to Honeywell I’ll have waisted £500, think it’s disgusting, neither BG or Hive have a clue how it works

I enjoy reading all the problems with Hive. I had no problems with Hive until I installed the bulbs and then had 4 months of problems with thermostat losing connection due to firmware problems on the bulbs. This was eventually updated and system is now pretty reliable although thermostat occasionally loses connection which is a pain as winter is now here and hate to wake up to a cold house. I have to say the help you get from the guys and gals in the control centres are second to none, they really do their best to help. I want the thermostat 2 as much easier to reset if it loses connection, thermostat 1 is too fiddly for elderly people to reset but Hive won’t recognise this and want to charge £99 for thermostat 2. They should provide it free exchange for these people

Wow! Reading this I feel extremely lucky. Hive/New boiler installed 3 years ago and no issues at all.

I don’t use the bulbs – and glad I dodged that bullet.

I did have a moan last year (December 2016) about the external temperature which was ALWAYS 5 degrees out, and I notice that this has now gone – shame, but no point if it’s not accurate.

I have been toying about getting Hive for my daughter’s place, but I am not going to put up with issues detailed in all the comments above, as she lives over 100 miles away. “Aint nobody got time for that”.

Hive does not use WiFi it uses ZigBee which harnesses the power of the mesh to connect every product to every other product. So if one of your products fails, the others should continue to communicate without interruption.
So is it possible that the system operates ok with just heating installed (one item) and problems only start when the extra devices are installed.

Hi, I got Hive installed yesterday and was happy with it, got up this morning and house is freezing, fault on the boiler (never had a problem with it until Hibe installation and it’s only 2 years old) called Hive who sent out BG engineer today, advised by BG engineer that the fault is 100% nothing to do with Hive installation and that I need to pay £109 to get fixed. I do not believe in coincidences like this, never had a single problem with 2 year old boiler and get Hive and faults start appearing within hours. So a nice wee £109 Bill to contend with. Shpuld have stuck with the Danfoss.

I waited for an engineer to install a hive in my sons house as a Xmas present A huge carry on waited from 1130 to 1430 called them they said the visit would be after 1600 Was out of the house for an hour back at 1530 waited till 1745 called they said an engineer had been on leaving the house found scrunched up card wedged in the letter box so hadn’t seen it I was so bloody angry They told me it couldn’t be fitted till next year so I told them to cancel the order which I had made and paid for They refused and said because my sons email was on the order he would have to cancel it We have both written strong letters of complaints and my son has demanded a refund to me Hive have failed to respond Is this a scam organisation and how do I get my money back Disgusting service shame on the lot of you Nancy Gray

If it were up to me I would never have chosen to buy into the Hive system (not HomeKit compatible and I have a deep seated loathing for British Gas) but unfortunately the previous owners of my house opted to install it along with a new boiler about 9 months before I bought the house from them. From day one I was having trouble with the ridiculous system, no matter where I put the thermostat I was unable to connect it to my hub and after weeks of trying and failing to sync it up I gave up and use it solely as a wireless but manually edited thermostat (meaning the benefits of having a ‘smart’ thermo are totally wasted). In the meantime, assuming it was the hub that was knackered, I got my hands on an active plug and a couple of lights with new hub included. Both of these accessories were a pain to set up but ultimately connected and according to the lady on the phone with Hive should act as a signal booster (I think somebody is telling porkies).
Tried to connect again intermittently over the last year but the thermostat still cannot be found by the hub.
Other than the more-than-occasional issues with the dreaded ‘no signal’ warning on the dashboard (despite being a metre away from the boiler and resolved by reseating the batteries) I had no further issues until this current winter. Over the last year I have had to change the batteries maybe twice and both times had ample warning from the thermostat, however, over the last two months I have awoken to find the central heating off on multiple occasions and have changed the batteries no fewer than 4 times (this last lot lasted a mere 6 days before dying a miserable death!)
Cold and annoyed with snow on the ground a couple of days before Christmas I contacted Hive to complain about the battery life issue and was told that until I get the thermostat synced with the hub they are unable to provide any assistance.
As you can probably imagine I was more than a little annoyed given the years worth of aggro in this regard and explained in no uncertain terms that this is not possible with the current equipment I have at my disposal.
The next suggestion was to talk me through the sync process with the hub with a technician over the phone (the implication that I am unable to follow seemingly basic instructions was a little insulting but I shall gloss over that). This phone support suggestion is all well and good but having used up a dozen batteries in a short space of time I found myself clean out of double As. As such I was unable to power the ridiculous machine on until I had thawed out enough to take a trip down to the shops to throw money at a pack of Duracell’s which ultimately lasted less than a week. Cannot wait for my next call to phone support tomorrow.
To say I hate the Hive thermostat is an understatement and as a self certified ‘techy’ I am aware of the limitations of technology, particularly in regards to home automation but this honestly takes the biscuit.
Hive is overpriced, unreliable and has the range of a gnats genitalia and the lifespan of a mayfly.

All 4 of these children were taken from their mother who doesn’t have custody and fled out of the county with them.
July 4th they left from Lost Angeles airport and their final destination was Paris France.
We do not know the whereabouts they may be now. They could be anywhere in the world.
[img]https://intersnap.com/Missing-Kona-Kids.jpg[/img]
Our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KonasKids/

Just had 2 engineers from British Gas spend 4+ hours installing Hive multilzone for 3 thermostats. It appeared to work when they left……………………..

However, they have wired it up completely wrong. When the 1st thermostat is switched on it turns the 3rd zone on. When the 2nd thermostat is switched on it turns all 3 zones on and when the 3rd thermostat is switched on none of the zones turn on.

Hive are sending out an engineer to fix the problem tomorrow but British Gas is clearly not training its engineers properly. Having seen the installation videos I am sure I could have installed this myself in an hour

Small problem. My Hive system works very well. But one exception. Perhaps it’s my boiler. When pressing the boost boiler starts on the spot. Problem is my boiler will not work at the following programmed heating period a few hours later. I can hear the pump running but boiler will not fire up. Whenever this happened I have to reset my boiler.

My boiler failed after 17 years. BG came and installed a new boiler and despite being told to use existing boiler controls removed them and fitted Hive. They had trouble getting it to connect to boiler but eventually it worked.
When they left I was having trouble getting an even temperature. The system overshoots and then switches off for ages to cool down Result some areas get very cold. This is because Hive thermostat is so old fashioned that it does not have a predictor. I’ve had one for 30+ years on the system they removed.
I am trying to get BG to remove Hive and fit the control system for the boiler they installed that has a predictor and works with the modulating control. As a boiler control Hive is rubbish.

I forgot to mention that the radio link between Hive and the boiler keeps dropping, especially around 2200hrs?? Often I can only get it back by resetting the thermostat (remove its battery) and switching off the boiler. Moving the thermostat around to strange positions sometimes works. Often it will not talk when within a metre of the boiler.
As I said before Hive is rubbish as a boiler control.
It is not fit for purpose and will have to go even If have to buy the correct controller for the boiler.
As for BG installing it rather than the manufacturers equipment!!!

I had a new boiler installed in Oct 2015 & hive had to be installed as the new boiler would not work with the old thermostat. I was told hive would work on standalone – it would not need an internet connection but the signal keeps on dropping, it has been particularly bad this winter.
Hive support have told me I need a hub & should connect via wifi but as I technically never paid for the hive system I have to take it up with BG who installed it in the first place because they ordered the wrong type of boiler.
Reading all these comments I am now going to try & get hive replaced & go back to what I had before BG replaced my boiler.

Had hive installed with new boiler just over a year ago. Occasional problems with hive going offline – red status light comes on, heating goes off. Have to press over-ride for central heating. Lately this happens ALL THE TIME – today red light on all the time. Hive online and phone agents are pleasant and helpful but endless resetting of the system and plugging in extra boosters simply does not work. I think getting rid of hive is the only solution as it’s so utterly frustrating and incomprehensible.

If it’s just happened like mine I’ve found a solution. The problem is caused by my wireless router interfering with hive. Chances are your internet router has changed channels and now interferes with the hive signal. I changed my routers WiFi channel from 6 to 2 and all is well. I had similar problems with sky Q going down due to router channel being too close to what sky used and when I saw thermostat uses 2.45ghz and channel 6 goes up to 2.449 interference seemed possible. I’m now on 2 which is 2.442 and much further away from what hive uses. The default for a bt home hub is auto select I’ve turned off and manually selected 2.

I just bought a Hive heating control system. The wiring diagram, on page 12, for Single channel receiver wiring shows one connection as ‘Common’. Three phase electricity has a ‘Common’ but ordinary domestic houses have a single phase electricity supply with just Live, Neutral and Earth. My question is ‘What is this Common in the diagram?
Jim